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One of the things that we love about Braze is that they’re constantly improving their marketing platform. Never resting, always innovating. To keep you from being “Brazed and Confused,” we want to highlight a few new features and functions that were recently released. Data Enrichments Any database marketer worth their weight can tell you that data hygiene is a critical piece of a successful marketing automation operation. In an effort to help support Braze practitioners with their ongoing data maintenance activities Braze has empowered them to both find and remove duplicate profiles. Now you can now generate your own duplicate user reports (no need to call Support) and then you can remove the dups, in bulk no less, without having to call on IT/Engineering to help. Additionally, Braze has added Amazon S3 buckets to their existing list of available cloud data source (Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and Databricks). Braze System Configuration Improvements Excitedly, Braze has promoted the Early Access (EA) Quick Push feature to full General Availability (GA). This is a great feature that allows you to create unified push messages across platforms/devices in a single message configuration area. This should really help uses streamline their development process. Recognizing there are those of you who have greater compliance regulations, Braze has added Google Cloud Storage (GCS) as an option for message archiving in addition to the existing Azure Blob and Amazon S3 options. Once you configure GCS as an export target you can send .gzip JSON archive files of your past campaigns. User Experience Enhancements Adding to their catalog of AI features, Braze has added a tone control drop down pick list to accompany the language and length copy generation parameters. What’s great is that they have included 10 different tones you can choose from: Casual Exciting Eye-Catching Formal Passive Personal Professional Sophisticated Straight Forward Urgent For those Braze practitioners who develop big canvases with lots of potential paths, tracking quality assurance can be difficult. The good news is that Braze has released a new “Preview as a User” feature that can help. You can either choose a specific, or random, user and run a test to see what their anticipated pathing will be if the Canvas were live. It provides a visual accounting highlighting which boxes it goes through in a green highlight, as well as a result set on the left side which even includes some potential issues that could arise as designated by the orange circles. Customer Experience Not all the enhancements this month are for the Braze practitioners, there are some for the end customers who receive the messages too. Upon the initial success of their Dynamic Content Card feature, Braze has expanded it beyond Campaigns to also be available in Canvases. What is great about this is you can now message users right away without having to wait for them to qualify for the campaign. In near real-time you can encourage them to whatever call-to-action you want. Lastly, on the heels of the new iOS release, there is a ‘Push to Start Live Activities’ feature. This is an amazing way to communicate with the users without them having to open their app or constantly opting in to a litany of events. We do caution that it does take a little finesse to implement, but with the right use case it’s more than worth it. Which of these new features are you most excited to use? If you want to learn more about anything Braze related feel free to drop us a note .

If you’ve already completed Braze’s onboarding process and understand the fundamentals of campaign creation, then you’re ready to start taking your campaign builds to the next level! For many Braze users, this sounds great, but how to start can feel like a Herculean task. No need to be Brazed and Confused because we got you covered. We’ve gone ahead and done you the favor of outlining some advanced ideas and techniques that can help you to start optimizing your marketing campaigns today. 1. Set Clear Objectives and KPIs Begin by understanding your campaign's objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). Define what you want your campaign to achieve, such as increasing open rates, user engagement, or driving purchases. Set specific KPIs, like a 20% lift in open rates. This measurable target serves as a checkpoint to gauge success in getting more people to open your messages. You could also consider a 5% increase in clickthrough rates as another KPI. This indicates that customers are not only opening your messages but also clicking on the links. These clear KPIs will let you know if your efforts are actually making a difference towards your marketing objectives. 2. Explore Advanced Segmentation and Personalization Tactics Instead of sending a generic message to all users, utilize custom attributes and event data to segment your audience based on their acquisition source, demographics, app usage, or purchase history. Personalize messages using Liquid scripting in Braze, such as tailoring content based on the user’s purchase history, browsing behavior, or zero party data. 3. Capitalize on Behavioral Triggers and Event-Based Campaigns Identify key lifecycle events, such as completing a profile or making a repeat purchase, and then set up triggered campaign that respond to these specific user actions. This will ensure that your campaign is not only timely, but also relevant to each user's unique journey. 4. Leverage Multichannel Engagement Identify key lifecycle events, such as completing a profile or making a repeat purchase, and then set up triggered campaign that respond to these specific user actions. This will ensure that your campaign is not only timely, but also relevant to each user's unique journey. 5. Use A/B Testing for Continuous Improvement When executing a Champion/Challenger type model, leverage the Winning Variant functionality. This feature automatically sends customers the campaign variant that drove the most conversions in the initial A/B testing. While this approach is effective, keep in mind that the winning campaign may not be the best fit for everyone. To maximize conversions on an individual level, you should try Braze’s Personalized Variant feature. This feature tailors the campaign variant for each customer, sending the version that the user is most likely to convert-on as determined by their unique preferences, attributes, and behaviors. 6. Enlist Smart Delivery and Timing Optimization Turn on the intelligent delivery features, such as the Intelligence Suite. It analyzes user interactions and identifies patterns to determine the optimal delivery time for each individual. This ensure your message reaches users when they are most active or likely to engage. 7. Capitalize on the Power of AI in Braze In the realm of Braze optimization, the integration of AI stands out as a transformative force. Content QA with AI is an indispensable tool, ensuring your messages are not just sent, but are polished and tailored to perfection. This feature checks formatting, content, grammar, and style—maintaining professionalism and resonance with your end users. Get excited, there are also some more AI features coming soon: AI Item Recommendations : Uses AI to recommend relevant catalog content based on user preference characteristics and attributes. AI Canvas Step : Within Canvas lets customers leverage ChatGPT to automate personalized marketing. The step uses large language models (LLMs) to quickly interpret user-provided inputs, such as survey feedback, to determine the appropriate responses and trigger messages. By implementing these strategies within your campaigns in Braze, you can create a more personalized, engaging, and effective marketing experience for your users. Remember, the key is to continuously analyze and optimize based on user behavior and feedback, ensuring that your campaigns meet the ever-changing needs of your audience. Interested in diving deeper? check out our article on Mastering ISP Segmentation for tips on optimizing your email campaign’s deliverability and engagement.

If you’ve been using Braze for a while, then you likely have a nice accumulation of custom attributes. Often these types of fields are added one, or two, at a time as needs arise. However, continuing this strategy can be overwhelming from data management perspective – does the phrase “nickel and dime” resonate? There has to be a better way, right? Enter Braze’s Array of Objects . A powerful feature that allows you to organize and scale your growth without having to constantly add (and manage) independent new attributes. What It Is Custom Attributes are already a cornerstone of effective targeting in Braze, allowing you to tailor your marketing efforts with precision. But what if you could take this precision a step further? Enter an Array of Objects ; a feature that lets you assign custom attributes to a primary custom attribute. For those who’ve been around data for awhile, it could be compared to a nested table. Think of them as chapters (object arrays) added to a book (primary custom attribute) where you add more information to flesh out the story. What this means for marketers is more granular data, better segmentation, and ultimately, more impactful marketing campaigns. When managing data in Braze, choosing the right structure is crucial for effective personalization, segmentation, and scalability. While it might be tempting to rely on multiple custom attributes for organizing your data, leveraging an Array of Objects offers a more efficient, flexible, and powerful approach and here’s why: Why It Matters: Organized and Scalable Data One of the most significant advantages of using an Array of Objects is the ability to maintain a clean and organized data structure . Imagine you’re tracking users’ shopping cart items. With multiple custom attributes, you might end up with attributes like: product_name_1, product_price_1, product_name_2, product_price_2, and so on. This can quickly become a data administrator’s nightmare, especially as the number of items increases. Instead, an Array of Objects allows you to store each product (1, 2, n) as an object within an array . Each object can contain attributes like name and price, neatly grouped together. This not only reduces clutter, but also makes your data more understandable and easier to manage. Managing a flat structure with numerous custom attributes can become increasingly difficult. An Arrays of Objects offers a scalable solution , allowing you to store a variable number of related items without the need to define a fixed number of custom attributes upfront. For example, if a user’s cart expands from two to nine items, you don’t need to scramble to create additional custom attributes. The Array of Objects systematically scales, accommodating any number of items seamlessly. This makes data management more efficient and future-proof. Simplified Integration and Data Synchronization When integrating Braze with other systems, like an eCommerce or CRM platform, maintaining a consistent data model is important. An Array of Objects simplifies this process by enabling the ability to map complex data structures directly without the need to create numerous custom attributes. Flexible Content Rendering In a Braze Campaign or Canvas Flow, an Array of Objects gives you the flexibility to dynamically render content based on the properties within the array. For example, you could loop through an array of recommended products to display them in an email, tailoring the content to each user’s specific data. This approach not only enhances the user experience, but also makes it easier to update content. Instead of modifying multiple attributes, you can update the objects within the array, ensuring consistency and accuracy across your Campaigns and Canvases . Pro Tip: Implement an Array of Objects Ready to take your Braze data management to the next level? Here are some expert tips to ensure you get the most out of utilizing the Array of Objects functionality: 1. Data Planning Please note that an Array of Objects is intended for custom attributes sent via API (available with modern data warehouses and CDPs). Unfortunately, CSV upload is not currently compatible. Attribute Definition: Ensure that the Array of Objects in your custom attributes align with your campaign goals. They should make sense for your segmentation and overall strategy. Data Types: Carefully select the data type (String, Number, Boolean, etc.) for each sub attribute, as this will impact how you can filter and segment your users. Date Format: If you’re capturing dates, stick to the ISO8601 format. This will ensure that Braze’s segmentation tools work flawlessly with your data. 2. Implementation For detailed instructions on how to do this, check out the Braze User Guide. Pre-Load Braze Attribute Setup: Instead of automatically creating your Array of Objects during the initial data load, set them up beforehand via Postman or a similar tool. This ensures the data is processed correctly from the get-go. Attribute Data Type Adjustment: After setting up your Array of Objects, ensure the correct data types are assigned for each sub-attribute in the Braze platform. This step is crucial for accurate data processing. Test: Run a small data load test using tools like Postman. Save this API Payload test, it’ll come in handy later when you engage with your Data/IT team for fine-tuning. 3. Data/IT Team Collaboration API Payload Example: Once your Array of Objects is finalized, create an API Payload example in JSON format. Share this with your Data/IT team to guide them in setting up the data load. A clear example saves time and reduces errors—sharing is caring! With this newfound knowledge, we recommend you take this opportunity to empower your future marketing with an Array of Objects. The heavy lifting of continuously curating attributes together will be behind you, leaving you with a more focused and refined data structure. This, in turn, will allow you to target customers with messages tailored to their unique profiles, think more about their purchase behaviors and preferences, rather than just basic actions like email opens or link clicks. If you’re curious how this could work with your data or if you're struggling to organize that first “chapter” of your “book,” just let us know here and we'll gladly help you out. Happy targeting!

At Braze, innovation is an endless journey. They're always pushing the boundaries to make their platform more powerful and user-friendly. To keep you from feeling "Brazed and Confused," here's a rundown of some of the latest new features that were previously only Early Access (EA), but are now available and rolling out for General Availability (GA). Increased Efficiency Updated Currents Test Connector Limits Braze has made it easier to test and export data to your preferred destinations with improved limits for Currents Test Connectors. Now, the reset period is every 7 days instead of 30, allowing for more frequent and efficient data exports. You're limited to 10,000 events per 7-day period, meaning you can export more without needing to buy additional capacity. Perfect for those who love to tinker and optimize! One-Click Custom Data Export Need to export your custom attributes and events quickly? The new Custom Data Export feature allows for One-Click CSV downloads and API endpoints, making data cleanup a breeze. You can easily export all your custom attributes and events, enhancing your overall efficiency. Feature Flag Membership Filter Getting user feedback on new features before a full rollout just got simpler. The new Feature Flag Membership Filter allows you to retarget customers based on whether they have a specific Feature Flag enabled. For example, enable a Feature Flag for a small percentage of users, then send a feedback survey only to this test group. This feature is great for testing before a global launch, ensuring that any new experience is polished and well-received. Improved User Experience Canvas Fullscreen Navigating large and sophisticated Canvases has never been easier with the new Canvas Fullscreen mode. Get a comprehensive view of your entire Canvas on a single screen, eliminating the need for the left-side navigation pane. It's a small change that makes a big difference in usability! Liquid Composition Updates Writing Liquid just got easier! With the new updates, the Liquid Composition feature now includes autocomplete and syntax highlighting. Different colors and styles distinguish Liquid tags, outputs, variables, and comments, streamlining the writing process. This feature is rolling out across the Email and Webhook composers, followed by the push notification channel. Empowering Marketers with Data Flexible Segmentation With Cloud Data Ingestion (CDI) Segments, marketers can seamlessly pull data from various Cloud Data Warehouses like Big Query, Databricks, Redshift, and Snowflake through CDI, allowing for the creation of precise audience segments within Braze. This not only enhances flexibility but also minimizes dependence on technical teams. Utilizing the Segment extension functionality, data from the CDI-connected cloud warehouse can be synced with user profiles and catalogs regularly, though only data within the same warehouse can be joined. SQL Queries Simplified AI Query Builder simplifies the complex process of generating SQL queries, making it accessible for anyone to gain deep insights and drive impactful changes. With prebuilt SQL Query templates and capabilities for analyzing data in the Snowflake backend, this tool is invaluable. Furthermore, the AI SQL Segments feature empowers non-technical marketers to create advanced, granular segments using generative tools, enabling them to find meaningful data without the need for in-depth SQL knowledge. Whether you're entering prompts to generate SQL statements or exploring prebuilt queries, these tools make sophisticated data segmentation and analysis more accessible than ever. Braze continues to innovate, making it easier for marketers and data managers to get the most out of their campaigns. Stay tuned for more updates and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible with your marketing efforts! If you want to learn more about anything Braze related feel free to drop us a note .

Working with a marketing automation company that prioritizes continuous improvement and innovation is truly exciting. However, it can be challenging to stay updated with the ever-growing list of new capabilities and features. To alleviate any confusion, and to provide clarity on the recent developments, this post aims to highlight the key advancements Braze has made in the past few months organized into logical groupings. Data and Audience Management It's widely known that data lies at the core of any effective marketing automation system. It serves as the driving force behind creating targeted audience segments and delivering personalized communications. Recognizing this importance, Braze has expanded its Cloud Data Ingestion (CDI) feature beyond Snowflake to now include Amazon's Redshift and Google's BigQuery platforms. This enriched CDI ecosystem has paved the way for two new features to be deployed: Sync the removal of customer records . If your cloud instance serves as your data system of record, you can configure your data syncs to remove (i.e. delete) any users who are no longer marketable. Populate your Data Catalogs* from the cloud. Braze was wise enough to understand the power of this functionality and has provided each instance with 100MB of complimentary storage. Additionally, there are Pro-level options available, ranging from 5 to 15 GB, for those with larger storage needs. *As a reminder, Data Catalogs extend your marketing data to provide additional details about non-customer centric information. For instance, you can now house information like store location, product pricing, or course catalogs for added personalization elements in your marketing communications. Moreover, as a multichannel marketing tool, Braze understands the need to operate seamlessly across various channels and applications. Specifically, in the realm of social media and advertising, Braze has introduced a secure method to synchronize your audience's first-party data with major platforms such as Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok. This integration allows for enhanced marketing outcomes and empowers you to leverage your data effectively across these platforms. User Interface (UI) / User Experience (UX) Updates First and foremost, the major parts of the platform went under the knife for a redesign. It now boasts a more modern and intuitive interface that aligns seamlessly with Braze’s comprehensive marketing software identity. The UI dashboard showcases the updated look and feel of the new and improved platform. In fact, the redesign goes beyond aesthetics. Braze has also made changes to its taxonomy to better align with its overarching marketing value proposition. For instance, what used to be referred to as "App Groups" is now called "Work Spaces." Also, the sub-menus have been reorganized and given a nice face lift. Take a look at the example where we hovered over the “messaging” item (see below): The good news is that once you switch to the “new” navigation, you’re not locked in…yet. You can go back to the legacy layout, but only until January 2024, and then UI, the updates will be permanent. Continuing their commitment to simplifying the lives of marketing users, Braze has introduced two additional drag-and-drop editors: one for email preference center development and another for the IAM (In App-Messaging) editor. These user-friendly interfaces enable easier development and testing, by ultimately reducing the time spent toggling between different parts of the build cycle. Notably, in the email subscription template, Braze has incorporated a set of intuitive switches that you can leverage for enhanced convenience (see below). These switches provide a user-friendly way to manage and customize email subscriptions. Canvas Gifts And if that weren’t enough, Braze has gone wild with new enhancements to the canvas portion of the campaign building process. These enhancements provide even more flexibility and collaboration opportunities with these key additions: Historical version saving: You can now create versions of a canvas as view-only references, allowing you to track and refer back to past campaign iterations more easily. Commenting within a canvas component: To promote better collaboration among colleagues, Braze has introduced the ability to add comments to specific component boxes within a canvas. This feature promotes streamlined communication and feedback within the campaign building process. Draft copy saving: Braze now allows you to save and work within a draft copy of a campaign. This functionality proves particularly useful for quality assurance (QA) and in-flight testing, providing a controlled environment for testing and refining campaigns before launching them. Automated A/B testing: A/B testing has been automated to streamline the execution process. You can now programmatically send the remaining messages to the winning variant based on predetermined criteria such as Conversion Event, Opens, or Clicks. And all you need to do is flip on this switch: Looking ahead It's clear that Braze is on a roll with their continuous improvements and exciting new features. We look forward to seeing all the new enhancements they have coming this year before the big Forge user conference in October.

One of the things that we love about Braze is that they’re constantly improving their marketing solution. Never resting, always innovating. To keep you from being “Brazed and Confused,” we want to highlight a few new features and functions that were released while you were enjoying your turkey leftovers. Braze is what it is, and does what it does, because of its ability to capitalize on user data and attributes. Knowing this, Braze has worked hard to make the data import process even easier for marketers of all skillsets. Most recently you’ll find they’ve: Enhanced Error Reporting: There’s a new CDI Sync Log page to highlight the exact row causing any data quality issue. No more hunting for a needle in a haystack, as it clearly shows the erroneous data records. Enabled Cloud Data Ingestion (CDI) API Triggers: Often, marketing data updates are at the mercy of larger enterprise updates. Given the variability in those processes to finish, CDI can now be initiated via an API trigger. This is a much more efficient way to get your data into Braze. Added Surrogate Key Bypass: When updating data, the need for an arbitrary system generated data key (aka surrogate key) has been removed and you can now directly update user attributes, events, and such, from their natural IDs (i.e. Emails and Phone Numbers). Just add an email and/or phone number column to the CDI syncs. In addition to the data updates, once you’re in the tool, you’ll discover a few new fun things to enhance your marketing. Connectors for Testing Currents: New connectors for testing Currents are available, and they’re awesome! You can now ‘try before you buy’ with an unlimited number of connectors, but you are limited to 10,000 events across your connectors in a rolling 30- day window. Because Currents offers the most granular set of data in real-time, we find it’s a must-have for any marketing organization serious about its growth. User Sign-ups and Marketing: New in-app templates are available for capturing email or phone numbers, and then adding them to the subscription group of your choosing. Also, we appreciate how Braze thought ahead on this one. While anticipating the influx of SMS viable users you’ll receive thanks to the new templates, they also released an SMS double opt-in workflow. This automated double opt-in journey will help you maintain SMS regulatory compliance as well as implement marketing best practices. Feature Flags: Feature flags are a cool, new admin feature that allows you to enable or disable a particular set of features for specific user groups. This is great if you’re looking to test something out before releasing it to your full team of users. There’s always something new around the corner at Braze. We’re looking forward to seeing what new surprises they have in store for us to close out 2023!

BUSINESS PROBLEM An industry leading airline company was working with a dated campaign management software system, using a version that was no longer being supported by the software vendor. Compounding their outbound marketing issues, their campaigns constantly changed ownership, their historical campaign data was not being captured accurately and there were all too frequent marketing operation issues. They were ready to take a fresh look at their marketing ‘wants & needs’ and align them with a more current version of Unica software to incorporate some of the industry’s newer functionality - enhancing their marketing organizations capabilities while providing a solid foundation for future growth and flexibility. CLIENT PAIN POINTS 1) Lacked Governance, Standardization and Best Practices The marketing department had continuously evolved from the time the campaign management system was originally implemented. Over time, marketing campaigns had changed owners with each new one adding their own code. These layered campaigns were always being executed, but the reasons for some of the coding were not always understood especially since many business rules had changed over time. The situation was further intensified by different coding interpretations of specific global business rules that were not consistent across campaigns, nor documented, eventually resulting in the loss of potential contacts from some campaigns. ​ 2) Inaccurate and Incomplete Campaign System of Record In their old campaigning process they were not accurately capturing a historic record of all of the marketing touches a customer received. This led to an internal misrepresentation of how often customers were being contacted (we discovered they were losing track of as many as 25% of their marketing touches!). In addition, because the loading of the contact history records was a manual, multi-step process it was not uncommon to have some issues while trying to load the data. These loading issues resulted in loosing valuable time to identify the problem and fix it so the records could be loaded into the database. 3) Poor Application Administration and Contact Management From the manual file processing and the build-up of old and historical marketing campaigns, there was a perpetual accumulation of files on the marketing application server to the point where it needed to be frequently cleaned up so the current run of marketing campaigns could process uninterrupted (and create more files). The file structure was over-personalized and redundant leading to operational delays in locating, using and deleting files. THE SOLUTION Covalent Marketing did a complete upgrade, using our experience based campaign management project delivery methodology and best practices. We re-evaluated their marketing processes and subsequently: 1) Added/ Implemented new automated marketing capabilities - Making it less labor intensive 2) Standardized, templated, and centralized global and frequently reused business processes - Encouraging consistency 3) Streamlined their contact history process removing old trouble spots - Improving data accuracy ​4) Evaluated, reorganized and removed old files and scripts - Freeing up disk space, making a logical folder hierarchy 5) Enhanced their marketing measurement capabilities - Helping close the database marketing loop BUSINESS RESULTS As a result of the upgrade, the client gained a much more efficient marketing operation. Their campaigns are fully documented and use several marketing best practices – and those marketing campaigns that Covalent Marketing built have execution times that run up to 35% faster , saving hours of processing time! They can now swiftly and correctly log their outbound marketing touches directly from an automated process built in to the campaign management tool giving them a precise, 100% accurate historical view of their past marketing efforts. Eliminated inefficiencies around file and script management. And with some forward thinking Covalent Marketing was able to set the table for them to upgrade/enhanced their reporting capabilities for when the time comes.

BACKGROUND SCENARIO With a mandate to use Aprimo (MRM) software across the enterprise, the marketing organization needed to assess the campaign production process in order to integrate and improve. A full evaluation of current state product list, requirements data collection, funnel process, team involvement, and campaign tiering structure was required. It was determined that the digital and print channel production processes were inconsistent across teams, there was a lack of task automation, brand standards were not being met, timelines were too long, and product quality was inconsistent. Additionally, the processes were not integrated with strategic planning, execution, and reporting. This created lag time in delivery, inefficiencies moving from planning to execution, and inability to standardize across the marketing enterprise. When it came to technology, the company’s end-to-end marketing operations process relied on various technologies. Marketing production completed by the digital and print teams was managed by separate tools and the company was not receiving the full benefits of a streamlined end-to-end process. Communication was disjointed and timelines were lengthened because marketing collateral requests had to be transferred to separate outside resource management systems for digital, print, and motion graphics projects. Furthermore, the use of separate systems did not allow for data collection and an audit trail on the end-to-end process. Finally, the tool in use by the digital and print production teams did not utilize automation, follow standardized timelines, house produced materials, or track communication. Along with the need for process and technology changes, the current state analysis showed several areas of possible improvement through user expertise and support. The arrangement of different team functions and priorities had organically created a number of different onboarding methods for new resources. New resources are a regular occurrence due to high attrition rates, according to company perception. With each team having different priorities for resource functionality and development, and several resources crossing over multi-team involvement, there was no way to track skill level or improvement on a standardized, calibrated scale. Rapidly changing processes and expectations had also recently altered all teams’ priorities, while stressing the need for better understanding of how to gain advantages from the tool. IMPLEMENTED SOLUTION The process redesign resulted in detailed level one and two process maps and SIPOCs for the print and digital production teams. The redesign focused on solving business issues, making use of modern workflow functionality, incorporating additional teams, and integrating MRM functions into the end to end marketing process. The following major innovations and improvements were incorporated into the production process: The product list was reduced from over 3000, to less than 500 Data required for a campaign was standardized across products Production processes were created to mimic the campaign tiering structure Additional quality assurance tasks were added to high visibility campaigns A brand new print process was created Automated workflows were crafted and configured in Aprimo MRM based on the new process maps. New extended attributes, attachment types, data collection templates, and step checklists support the added workflows. A long-term vision of improved system use utilizing the natural hierarchy of Aprimo was employed to create program, activity, and project types. Automation and increased up-front accountability were achieved by linking business rules to a “sorting” workflow that automatically starts a product-specific workflow containing durations that correspond with tier timelines. Lastly, integrating the new direct mail production process workflows into the legacy direct mail workflows achieved a complete end-to-end process managed by the MRM system for that department. Working with an influx of several hundred users, the Covalent Marketing team created a Marketing Mastery plan focusing on four distinct pillars of MRM capabilities. Application Expertise Execution and Accuracy Process Comprehension Contribution and Mentoring Within each pillar, levels were set accounting for a balance of time spent in the tool, frequency of specific actions, and industry standards for competency. To support this matrix, an administrative framework was put into place with the management suite to enable recording progress, awarding achievement, and the correct use of deliverables and resources for onboarding. After constructing the new process in the tool, Covalent Marketing built extensive documentation and led live education sessions. BUSINESS RESULTS The improved process created immediate tangible benefits. With the data collection process now being front loaded, there is a reduction in review cycles. By creating communication opportunities early in the process, it streamlines the timeline on the backend. Role based checklists facilitate consistent expectations and interactions amongst the teams. For in-depth creative projects, balancing the quality assurance team time between two steps in the process ensures that the review cycles are spent on brand standards and creative strength. The processes are built around campaign tiers and marketing mediums providing executives a deeper level of business relevant data. The processes now have the ability to move at the speed of business, which provides the marketing team the agility to adjust to changing customer needs. The inherent abilities of Aprimo technology created great benefit for the enterprise’s overall marketing operations. Integrating the participating teams into the existing structure in the enterprise’s Aprimo system improves automation for the end-to-end process. Housing all communication, creative design work, feedback, and revised documents in a single system leads to fewer instances of misplaced files and correspondences. The integration of the Aprimo system enables the creation of reports that give managers and executives insights into where support is needed and regular issues occur in the process. This end-to-end reporting empowers informed decisions about where to allocate resources or provide support. The Marketing Mastery plan focuses on three phases of benefit that are personalized to the needs of the enterprise. User instructions across job functions simplify the onboarding process. A common set of education and ability expectations for all users additionally creates a higher-functioning set of individuals with the documentation available for self-led research and improvement. The benefits create an impact at the team level, as communication and process evaluation is included in the requirements, as well as regularity of high-quality output. Finally, advanced mastery puts together a well-constructed and documented system of individual users whose abilities are made available for internally crowdsourced benefits to the company as a whole. These high-level masters will be able to take on trouble-shooting, documentation maintenance, and ideation of process improvements. ​PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS APRIMO SOFTWARE IMPROVEMENTS Front-loaded the process with improved data to reduce review cycles Materials for one campaign can easily be assigned to the same designer to maintain consistency Identified opportunities to utilize early communication and collaboration along the process map Form field construction makes it simple to find and report on specific project types Improved deliverables, ensuring consistency through formatted fields and checklists All work and notes within the system are easy to report on, showing places where support is needed, or regular issues are occuring Created consistent service level agreement definitions and timelines Accountability across all teams to adhere to service level agreements

BUSINESS PROBLEM Our client faced a significant challenge – increase campaign velocity and accuracy while moving to a shared services model. They were moving to a new focus – Event-Based Marketing, to better align their offerings to the customer lifecycle and they had picked a new, Best in Class enterprise marketing management application. Their goal was to simultaneously change their processes to become more flexible, increase reusability of their campaign components and remove time from their campaign development cycle. This would lead to an improved customer relationship, increasing retention. It would also have benefits for the marketing teams: better operational execution across the many channels and departments involved in getting marketing communications into the hands of customers. CLIENT PAIN POINTS 1) Slow campaign development lifecycle , coupled with slow execution. The Event-Based campaigns took the efforts of many different departments and from the time of the “event”, to when the vendor received the contact list, as much as a week of time transpired for some campaigns. This allowed the data to become stagnant and the “event” itself far less relevant by the time the marketing material reached the customer. ​2) Business rules were being left out , misinterpreted and were not transparent to the marketing managers who owned the campaigns. If there was something askew, it took a while to detect the error and then, to fix because of the number of departments involved. In one case a campaign was losing 33% of their potential customer contacts from coding inefficiencies and the IT group’s lack of marketing understanding! ​3) It cost tens of thousands of dollars to make modifications or add business rules. This process followed a very rigid, IT-oriented development lifecycle, not well suited to dynamic marketing. This resulted in slow speed to market. This was partly attributed to the large number of departments involved and the amount of steps it took to create (or execute) one Event-Based campaign. THE SOLUTION Covalent Marketing's solution was accomplished using the following steps: BUSINESS RESULTS Redefined the campaign system architecture and process flow to eliminate inefficiencies. Consolidated and centralized the campaign development and execution responsibilities to one group. As a by product this eliminated most of the IT development costs and they were able to focus on their core competency; customer data enrichment and application support/maintenance. Created and implemented new, customized coding that reduced the campaign execution lifecycle to under 24 hours for even their largest and most complex campaigns. Made the business rules transparent to those who created them in the first place ensuring nothing was “lost in translation”.

Business Problem An international financial organization was held back by inefficient and inconsistent offer management and campaign attribution methodologies. New offers, response flowcharts, and response staging tables were being built for each campaign. As a result, the client experienced the following problems: Duplication of Work Lack of Visibility Inconsistent Attribution Building new offers and response flowcharts for each campaign, when analogous campaign assets already existed, led to the creation of many similar campaign objects. This consumed valuable time and effort from the campaign development and analytics teams. Creating response staging tables for each campaign did not follow industry best practices. This exercise required unnecessary data processing and the development of ad-hoc response flowcharts for each campaign Further inefficiencies resulted from having to make customized response flowcharts for every marketing campaign. Developing ad-hoc response flowcharts was so time consuming that response analysis could only be measured after the campaigns’ response windows were closed. Consequently, there were no interim reports to gather insights about a campaign’s mid-lifecycle performance for the marketing team to react to and/or adjust. Campaign attribution was processed upon request. There were no overarching business rules in place to standardize its calculation. Rather, customers were attributed subjectively to the campaign which ran its response flowchart first. This technique led to inconsistent reporting across campaigns. The Solution To address these challenges, Covalent Marketing consolidated the duplicate work that was taking place, created meaningful mid-campaign lifecycle data, and standardized the response tracking process through automation and use of best practices. 1) Standardize Offer Creation Covalent Marketing standardized the offer creation process through reusable offer templates within IBM Campaign. Offer templates utilized parameterized offer attributes, reducing the overall number of offers created. These attributes are dynamic and allow for different offer variations to be created within the same offer object. ​ 2) Standardize Response Tracking Standard response tracking sessions and response staging tables were built for reuse across campaigns. Six different templates were made to account for the most commonly used campaign categories. For efficiency, the response staging tables were scheduled to refresh monthly in order to manage table size and to remove responses that have already been attributed. Lastly, Covalent Marketing advised that a last touch attribution rule be put into effect in order to consistently attribute responses across campaigns. ​3) Collect Mid-Campaign Attribution Data By running the response tracking sessions on a monthly basis, data is generated while the campaign is still active, in addition to once the campaign is over. This mid-campaign data could be leveraged to gain greater campaign performance insights more rapidly than when waiting for the entire campaign lifecycle to finish. Benefits As a result of the above solutions, the client now has an established progression through the campaign management process. Before, offer management, campaign development, and response tracking were done on a campaign by campaign basis. Now, with standardization and automation, the campaign developers and analysts know the information that is needed for each campaign upfront. This has helped to establish a more efficient and streamlined process that resulted in the following benefits: Reduced Offer Creation By creating offer templates with parameterized attributes, a single offer can be reused across multiple campaigns instead of creating a new offer for each campaign. Since instituting the new offer templates, there has been a 45% reduction in offer creation . In the six months prior to Covalent’s work, 90 offers were created versus the 50 offers created in the six months following. Standardized Response Tracking Grouping response flowcharts into single sessions by common campaign categories has alleviated the burden of creating a new response flowchart for each campaign. Today, 70-80% of campaigns fall within the common campaign categories, meaning that response tracking for these campaigns is automated by the response tracking sessions. This automation has allowed the Analytics team to focus their energy on creating more detailed and useful reports for the marketing organization. Adopting a standard last touch attribution methodology allows for consistent attribution across campaigns. This will make attribution data more reliable resulting in more dependable reporting. Gain Interim Reporting Insights With data now available during the campaign lifecycle, insights into campaign performance are gained sooner and more frequently. The client leveraged the out-of-the-box IBM Cognos reports to showcase the mid-campaign response attribution data that is now being generated.